Utility Planet is the official blog for the column of the same name in The Spectrum Monitor. It replaces Utility World in the discontinued Monitoring Times magazine. Utilities are all VLF/LF/MF/HF (and sometimes low-band VHF) radio communications except broadcasting, CB, and non-emergency amateur. If you understood the last sentence, you know enough to read this blog.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

It's for a .pdf file showing what looks like a PowerPoint presentation regarding the US Air Force's communications on its High Frequency Global Communications System (HF-GCS). The presentation was made by Rockwell/ Collins for a 2010 conference.

Much of the content is maps and charts, and it is best to get this file and look at it.

But here are some interesting facts about the HF-GCS:

1. "F.k.a. SCOPE Command." I take this to mean the SCOPE Command program was indeed an upgrade in HF-GCS, not a separate radio network. [SCOPE was an acronym for System Capable Of Planned Expansion -Hugh.]

2. 13 4 kW ground stations worldwide, with separate tx/rx sites.

3. 2 central control points: NCS-East at Andrews AFB, NCS-West at Grand Forks AFB, ND (under development). [????? GFAFB is currently the 319th Air Base Wing, and is being converted to Global Hawk surveillance drones. -Hugh]

4. The lead command is now the Air Force Space Command. [Again, ?????]

5.The document still shows McLellan (near Sacramento, CA) as "West Coast," even though it does ID as "McLellan." The station in the Falklands is listed as "South Atlantic (UK Station)," and it does not show on the coverage map. It appears to remote to Croughton.

6. Mission list still includes the functions of the previous Mystic Star and SITFAA. Newer capabilities are shown as Link-11 for the US Navy, and support of both test ranges for the Space Command.

7. Circuits between control points and stations are apparently migrating to voice/ audio/ data over IP.

8. It appears that the long range plan includes digital voice and a replacement for ANDVT which would allow end-to-end encryption from telephone to radio back to telephone using a single system.

This is an exciting time for people who follow solar-terrestrial phenomena. New spacecraft have joined the existing SOHO to give images and insights that were unimaginable even a year ago.

The sun turns out to be an even more interesting place than we knew it was already. Flares are long duration events, not simple explosions. CMEs can generate incredible lacy patterns. They can also now be observed from afar, showing exactly how they reach and engulf the Earth. Sunspots can now be observed while still deep inside the sun, before they reach the surface.

In the short term, CMEs and a coronal hole bode ill for stable HF propagation starting sometime tomorrow, but at least with the equinox coming they'll undoubtedly be great for aurora watchers. Today, though, HF propagation continues to be the best I've heard it in years.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

CFH, the Canadian Forces Halifax station in Nova Scotia, has switched back to STANAG 4285 (again) on September 1. Some might remember that it briefly tested this mode before going back to RTTY. Well, now it's gone back to STANAG. Parameters appear to be 75 baud, long interleave, ITA2 alphabet, 5 data bits and either no or one stop bit(s). Channel center is 1800 Hz so best decode on my receiver in USB mode is at -1.8 kHz.

The traffic is still an idler with the NAWS DE CFH ZKR ... AR marker every 30 seconds.

As long as we're discussing STANAG 4285, the highly regarded Sigmira decoding program for Windows and Linux has had that same problem with its features.dat file again. Apparently, this file becomes obsolete periodically and has to be replaced, but the program lacks an update function to do this. At this point, the button for STANAG 4285 does not work, and repeated clicking crashes the program.

This can be quickly resolved by downloading the new features.dat to your run directory for Sigmira to replace the existing one. The download is at the programmer's web site.